SINGAPORE, July 19 — A man and his friends used a total of 801 EZ-Link cards to buy at least S$109,990 (RM350,405) worth of cigarettes, exploiting a loop-hole in the card that allowed for automatic top-up of cash value.

Gary Yeo Jia Jun, 29, a Singaporean, was jailed for 19 months yesterday (July 18) after he pleaded guilty to a charge under the Computer Misuse Act and to another charge of voluntarily causing grievous hurt in an unrelated incident.

Aside from Yeo, three other Singaporeans were alleged to have taken part in the ploy.

They were:

― Chua Yi Da, 26

― Darren Koh Wei Zhou, 25

― Cynthia Li Xinyi, 24

It is not clear if Li has been dealt with for her role in the scheme, but the cases for Chua and Koh are still before the courts.

Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Samuel Chew told the court that all four had "conspired” to abuse the EZ-Reload programme sometime in June 2019.

Users who opt in for the programme may automatically get their cards topped-up with a pre-selected amount of cash value — once the stored value in the card falls below zero after they make a purchase.

DPP Chew said that in order to collect payment for the sums topped-up automatically, EZ-Link would deduct money from a source of funds, such as debit cards, that is pre-designated by the user in an EZ-Link mobile application.

The debiting would be performed automatically by EZ-Link’s computer within one or two working days from the time of the top-up using the EZ-Reload programme.

A single debit card could be linked to only one EZ-Link account.

If the designated source of funds has not enough money, EZ-Link’s computer would send an auto-generated text message to the user’s mobile phone to remind the person to make payment for the top-ups.

It is not clear when Yeo and the three co-accused persons became aware of the loophole, or when they started exploiting it, but they took several steps to bring their plans to fruition.

This included procuring 801 EZ-Link cards and setting them up to be tied to EZ-Link accounts — they were able to circumvent the restrictions by applying for several replacements of their personal debit cards through a DBS video teller machine.

Yeo also asked three unidentified individuals to provide information of their DBS debit cards in exchange for cash, and was eventually able to procure 87 debit cards from them.

In all, Yeo and the co-accused persons were able to procure and link a total of 216 debit cards to EZ-Link accounts, DPP Chew said.

With these cards, Yeo and his friends would then proceed to buy cigarettes on several occasions, either individually or together in a group.

These purchases were done by placing the EZ-Link cards on card readers connected to EZ-Link’s network. The prosecutor did not state how much stored value these cards had, but the purchases were able to trigger the EZ-Reload feature to top up the value of those cards.

Though it was not stated if the group frequented just one shop to use their EZ-Link cards illegally, DPP Chew said that their scheme was uncovered when an employee at a Cheers convenience shop made a police report on June 10 in 2019.

The witness stated in his report that Yeo and his friends had been making bulk purchases of cigarettes using EZ-Link cards since May that year.

DPP Chew said that the total amount that had been topped up illegally was S$109,990.00, and no restitution has been made.

"None of these losses could be recovered as the unauthorised top-ups were converted into cigarettes, which could not be seized from the accused persons,” he added.

The DPP also said that Yeo "never intended to deposit sufficient value in the linked DBS bank accounts, nor intended to make payment for the automatic top-ups performed by the EZ-Reload Program”.

Argument at Orchard Towers

DPP Chew also told the court of a separate incident where Yeo got into a fight with a man in his 20s outside a toilet at Orchard Towers. This was around 4am on January 18 in 2020.

Yeo was drunk when he got into an argument with the man named Chua Yi Yong and eventually knocked him to the floor with a punch.

While Chua was still on the ground, Yeo kicked him in the face once and left the scene, DPP Chew said.

As a result of the assault, Chua had a fracture on his right cheek bone, a cut on his right eye lid and a bruise on his head.

For charges under the Computer Misuse Act, Yeo could have been fined up to S$5,000 or jailed up to two years, or both.

For voluntarily causing grievous hurt, he could have been jailed up to 10 years and fined or caned. ― TODAY